Time is Running Out
by SweetSangSue
Summary: The stories of both Jack and Rose in the few days before they set foot on the titanic.Both Jack and Rose pov. Please RR!


**A/N: **This story takes place a few days before Jack and Rose board the Titanic. This one is _mostly_ in rose's point of view but I will switch pov between Rose and Jack and possibly other people!?! I did not write Titanic so sadly I do not own the characters or anything else for that matter of fact.

The Valet holds the carriage door open to a cold chilly night. He stands there poised, posh…_waiting _and impatient…. as we all seem to be….

"Is _this_ where were staying?" I say in mock disgust.

"Yes, the most expensive in all of London, for you dear."

I carefully climb out of the carriage, arm tucked neatly in his, always a half step behind.

Suddenly a noise comes from the alleyway, and we all pause. We look up for just a second but there seems to be nothing there.

"I heard the hotel was haunted, you'd better watch out Cal, we wouldn't want anything scaring you," Molly chuckles.

"It's probably just rats; they tend to come around when hotels are as…" Mother sends one of those chilling glares towards my way, the ones that have been know to snap a person right back in place.

"Rose, now you know, you must behave, my parents will be here on occasion and you know them they have the highest expectations and they haven't yet grow accustom to your… umm special charms… they may take it for something, more like an impertinence when really it …" Cal goes on and on, _will it never end._

As we pass I notice two small boys playing jacks on the sidewalk dirty faces, rumpled worked hands. It must have been their screams we heard as we walked down the newly red carpeting to the doorway. I walked on not another glance downward; knowing as I passed threw those grand oak doorways that I was trapped…

* * *

Every pull of the string she tightened harder and harder sucked more of my breath out of me. 

"Must you pull so hard?"

" Now Rose you know his parents will be in attendants tonight…hold still… you know you must make a good impression upon his mother, your marriage depends on it. And with all these things ahead of you… simple discomforts should hardly cross your thoughts."

Ha ha I laugh cynically in my thoughts, the same speech recited from heart yet again, probably passed down threw generations from one prideful bastard's wife to daughter over and over… what a joke, a game they all play. Girls. Women. All property, a piece on their big game board to be moved about. This engagement, the money, Oh and the pride: they all have it… shovels full of it… they care it around heavy on the shoulders, and yet it hardly weights any of them down.

"…Now finish getting ready dinner is at seven. Please find a suitable way to express yourself to his parents before then." She says heading toward the door, her mind already on other things.

" I will be attending tea with his mother to get better acquainted with her. And Rose…" She turns back her eyes burning into mine.

"Yes mother" I voice my anguish and exhaust.

"Don't do anything foolish" she finishes, her voice cutting.

With that she left the room leaving me to my lone self. I sat down on the velvet cushion facing toward the open widow. Laid my chin on my hands and looked out. Beyond the building roofs and the chimneys lined with smoke lay the ocean so vast deepening in evermore darker shades of blue. Like an interrupted heaven there it laid on the horizon, so bulky and lavish .

"Fulfiller of hopes of dreams, the signs say… NO, a ship of broken dreams, wedding gowns, and balls that never seem to stop... things that I never wanted, force upon me by every one I've ever known some American dream."

Turning to address the room I scream…

"Good Riddance to it all!"

Both of us seemed to jump out of our skins.

"Oh... umm… excuse me miss"

Behind me stood a boy around my age I suppose, a little scruffy, though the cleaning uniform comforted my previous alarm. I must have had an appalled look on my face because he quickly rushed into apologies.

"Uhhh…umm really I'm very sorry I was just uhhh… cleaning the bathroom when ya started talking and it was… you were very loud …I mean I never meant to eavesdrop but umm…I never heard someone talk to themselves…"

He looked at my face and stopped mid-sentence "…not that there's nothing wrong with ya… but err…"

"Calm down, stop looking so flustered, here sit down for a bit"

He sat down in the chair that I had pointed out to him and started to breath normally again.

"Now what was your name? I didn't catch it." I asked sitting across from him.

"Me names James …but I must be gettin' back to work miss"

"My names Rose, if you don't mind" He was very interesting to look at and figure out his clothes were slightly dirty, yet he wore brand new shoes and he had a silver pocket watch hanging from his pants, one that looked expensive and never would have belonged to someone of his class.

"Sorry missus…I mean Rose," he whispered. _Rose_…. the word had a funny unused taste in my thoughts like I felt it was something that held a void, an emptiness … then I realized it had been awhile since his last words.

"Back to apologies but finish what you were going to say" Some part of me really wanted to know but the other part fled from his common thoughts.

"That wasn't what I meant I…" I looked at him scornfully.

"Not to be so … your tirade seemed so angry and you so unhappy with this life… but the titanic acclaimed over and over…" he shook his head violently, "I only dream of such a thing but you damned the whole idea," he says in one exhausting breath and throws his hands over his mouth.

"Oh there I've gone again and talk more than I should of"

"No… No it'd be rude not to finish."

"Why do you hate the Titanic …for me it's a chance to start again, besides 'You can be anything you want in America,'" he quoted the many advertising posters lining the city.

"Well see that's just it I can't be free I'm tied down. That's where my mother's perfectly planned life starts and I don't have a choice …"

"'Ship of dreams,'" he stands, "what you aspire to… Dreams. Not set in stone plans. Not standards. Places that you couldn't of imagined your self in, not for anybody, dreams are your own personal thoughts alive and not any one person or thing can silence you there."

"Well that very nice and all for you I suppose but it's just not the same,"

A bell sounded somewhere off in the distance. We quickly snapped out of our daze … and I noticed that we had unconsciously been leaning in toward one another; our conversation had been so short yet so involved and intense. Hastily he rose.

"There calling me downstairs this was suppose to be my last room…" My face fell it was nice to have someone to confined in and now he was leaving.

He started to walk away. As if he could read my mind he said gentle….

"And now I have to leave."

He turned at the door and something on my face must have struck him … because he had this very quizzical look on his face like he was thinking hard… trying to work threw something in his head. Finally he spoke…

"We're kind of having this party tonight... to celebrate our last days here… I know your not really celebrating that but at least…"

"I would love to," just the thought to actually have a night to myself to do what I wished and not worry about anyone else.

I was so lost in my thoughts I hardly felt as he left.

And with that my life had something to look forward to, something to hope for perhaps.

* * *

"I do believe you all owe me something… James? Fabrizio?" 

"Jack, you know were all broke"

"Sorry lads, but you should've figured that out, before you bet your last pennies away,"

**Next one will be completely in Jack's point of view! Please review it would make me very happy!**


End file.
